The preparation of a beverage by a capsule containing beverage ingredients is known. In general, the capsule is inserted in a beverage production device, such as a coffee machine, liquid is fed in the capsule, the liquid interacts with the beverage ingredients and a beverage is extracted from the capsule under pressure or by gravity.
The preparation of a beverage by using the centrifugation is known. The principle mainly consists in providing beverage ingredients in a container of the capsule, feeding liquid in the receptacle and rotating the receptacle at elevated speed to ensure interaction of liquid with the ingredients while creating a gradient of pressure of liquid in the receptacle; such pressure increasing gradually from the centre towards the periphery of the receptacle. As liquid traverses the ingredients, e.g., ground coffee, extraction of the beverage compounds takes place and a liquid extract is obtained that flows out at the periphery of the receptacle.
The term “capsule” refers to any flexible, rigid or semi-rigid container containing beverage ingredients. Other synonyms to a capsule are: “pod”, “pad”, “cartridge” or “sachet”. The capsule can be single use. The container can also be filled with ingredients by the user to form the capsule just before use.
The term “ingredients” means any suitable beverage substance such as ground coffee, soluble coffee, leaf tea, soluble tea, herbal tea, dairy powder, culinary powder, baby food, other beverage nutritional ingredients and any combinations thereof.
A capsule system using centrifugation forces is described in the following documents: EP2210539, WO2008/148604, WO2008/148650, WO2008/148646, WO2008/148656 and WO2010/026045.
It is known to use a capsule in a beverage brewing device using centrifugation wherein a closure wall of the capsule is removed or perforated for enabling insertion of a liquid injection means and/or beverage extracting means.
However, the opening of the capsule requires the capsule to be inserted in a specific brewing device comprising perforating means. The size and location of the openings are thus dependent essentially on the configuration of the perforating means of the brewing device. Therefore, it is not possible to vary the size and location of the openings such as to adapt the flow conditions to the desired type of beverage.
Furthermore, such means may become blunt over time thus rendering the opening less effective or requiring more force of the device to carry out perforation.
The present invention aims at improving such principle by facilitating and providing more freedom for opening of the capsule.
It can also be required to adapt the openings to the type of capsule (e.g., its volume) and/or to the beverage ingredients (e.g., different coffee blends or tea) and/or type of beverage to prepare (e.g., ristretto, espresso, lungo, americano, etc.). In particular, it can also be useful to use the capsule in a brewing device comprising perforating means as well as in a device having no such perforating means while the capsule can still be opened properly. For instance, it can also be useful to have a capsule that can be perforated manually before insertion.